By Editor Freya Barnes
A burglary victim has denied causing a crash that killed a teenager who was fleeing on his stolen motorcycle.
In the early hours of January 24, 2023, three thieves broke into Callum Duncan’s shed where he stored three motorbikes at his home in Reddish, Stockport, Minshull Street Crown Court heard.
The 28-year-old was woken by the noise and pursued them in his Golf GTI as the trio attempted to escape on the stolen bikes.
However, the chaotic chase ended in a collision which killed 16-year-old Dean Barnes, who was riding as a pillion passenger on one of the bikes.
Mr Duncan and Adam Norman, 36, who was driving the stolen bike which Barnes was riding on, are both on trial accused of causing death by dangerous driving. They both deny the offence.
Norman and another man, Alexander Riley, 21, have pleaded guilty to the burglary.
Prosecutor Phil Barnes said there was ‘no room for doubt’ that Dean Barnes was the third burglar, adding it would be wrong to presume he was an ‘angel’.
Barnes, Norman and Riley went out in the early hours to commit the burglary, knowing the bikes were stored in the shed after seeing one for sale on Facebook, jurors were told. It was said someone had previously gone to look at the area.
A drill and bolt croppers were used to break into the shed at around 6.30am that morning.
Barnes took a small Yamaha PW50, commonly known as a ‘Pee Wee’, Riley rode a bigger Kawasaki and Norman took the largest bike, a white and black Husqvarna.
The prosecutor said the Husqvarna belonged to Mr Duncan, and the two other bikes belonged to his family and friends.
Having heard the break-in, Mr Duncan gave chase in his Golf GTI.
Shortly after realising they were being followed, Barnes left the ‘Pee Wee’ he was riding behind and got on the back of the Husqvarna with Norman, whilst Riley fled down Wharfdale Road.
Mr Duncan was travelling at up to 36mph in a 20mph zone and was seen to ‘bounce’ over speed bumps as he closed the gap between himself and Norman, the court heard.
Riley then turned right onto Gorton Road but the prosecution said Norman instead tried to ride straight, across two lanes of traffic, onto Ainsdale Grove, a residential road opposite.
The risky move backfired when the bike clipped the car of a female driver ‘doing absolutely nothing wrong’ as she came along Gorton Road from the left, knocking Norman and Barnes to the floor.
He added that Norman was ‘lucky’ to have been able to walk away from the crash, but Barnes hit a parked car when he fell and was killed ‘instantly’.
They claimed Mr Duncan must have seen the crash happen, but said he did not go to Barnes’s aid.
It is not claimed his car collided with the bike being driven by Norman.
Mr Duncan took the Husqvarna bike from the scene and brought it to his mother’s house nearby and the ‘Pee Wee’ bike was later also returned to his possession, the court heard.
The prosecutor said Mr Duncan called emergency services nearly four hours later, saying he had ‘only just realised how bad it was’.
He was arrested shortly after and replied ‘no comment’ to most questions, but added: ‘I wasn’t driving dangerously, didn’t do nothing to cause the crash.’
Norman went into ‘hiding’ after the incident and was only arrested on June 23, 2023. He replied ‘no comment’ to questions in his police interview, jurors heard.
The prosecutor said of Norman: ‘In his desperation to get away from the crime he had just committed, he rode that already dangerous bike at a speed which was completely excessive for the road conditions, paying no heed to other traffic, failing to give way at the junction and barrelling through blindly in the vain hope that he would make it to the other side.’
In regards to Mr Duncan, he said: ‘It is no defence, we will say to you, for Callum Duncan to plead that he was entitled to drive however he liked in an effort to recover his stolen property.
‘He still owed a duty to all the other road users around him, including those men on his bike.
‘The standard of driving to which he must be held to account does not change because of the circumstances he was in.’
Norman, of no fixed abode but from Brinnington, Stockport, and Mr Duncan, from Reddish, both deny causing death by dangerous driving.